I just love the farmers market during Summer. This is not my fave season, although if you have friends with a beach house — as it turns out I do — life is certainly greatly improved. But, goodness, the market is lush with fruits and vegetables for the most healthful cooking. And, living.

Of course, we are in the middle of peach season – yummy. Eaten in the hand, or sliced into whole grain cereal and a dash of nutmeg, or macerated in cognac with a scrape of vanilla bean. And, that’s if you aren’t going to cook cobblers, pies, crumbles.

Summer Wonders

This weekend, at the Union Square greenmarket in Manhattan, I happened upon the cutest little tomatoes. Larger than cherries, smaller than standard. With a deep orange/red color and topped with a dash of burgundy. Wonderful. I cut them up and added them to my sautéed fairytale eggplants, with some roast chicken. And a crumble of James Brown blue cheese from the Cato Corner farm.

I would show you that dish, but gee, it seems to have disappeared. But, here are some of my market goodies sitting on my NYC kitchen windowsill.

This is the time of the year when I cook up some of my grandmother’s garden vegetable dishes: with fresh green beans or zucchini. When I was growing up, you could not get me to eat them. Now, they are not only redolent and evocative of my youth, they are simply delicious!

Grandma’s Green Beans

2 Tomatoes (Beefsteak are fine, no sense overpaying for heirlooms at this time of the year)

3 handfuls of Green beans (look for those flat Roma beans – but any type or color will work)

2 or 3 smallish Potatoes (I like the little Yukon Golds — starting to see the first picks of the season)

3-4 T. Extra Virgin Olive Oil

Cut up the tomatoes, put them in a saucepan first — they create most of the liquid you will need for this dish. Cut up the potatoes into biggish chunks then toss in the green beans. I remove the ends – cook’s choice. Drizzle on the olive oil, pour in (maybe) a couple of tablespoons of water, salt and pepper. Put on the lid and cook at a low, slow simmer. 20-30 minutes or so. This is no al dente affair. More like a vegetable stew. I let the potatoes determine the length of the cook. If you pick a potato that can stand up to the cook, you should be fine.

I am a big fan of frittatas — whether whole egg, whole/egg white mix, or just egg whites — it is a great way to use some leftover vegetables – and, maybe, but not necessarily, just a little cheese as condiment.

So, I was surprised to learn a new addition to my usual frittata that I had never even considered: Greek Yogurt. The UBIQUITOUS protein-rich greek yogurt.

It is from the New York Times fabulous health writer and recipe maven, Martha Rose Shulman. Her recipes always work, and she has this great technique of teasing out the flavors. A recent recipe for a frittata with chard and green garlic – calls also for greek yogurt.

I made a successful batch this week. Check it out! And, tried it in another version of a frittata. Everything Shulman devises works out well.

There is a funny thing we weight losers do. If we should find ourselves gaining weight (and who hasn’t) we find ourselves saying “I have gained a few pounds.” Or, we will detach the weight loss from ourselves by saying “the weight won’t come off.” As if it is a separate entity.

So, I am here to say that I have gained 15 pounds. Not a “few” pounds. Not “some” weight. But, let’s be exact here. 15. Fifteen. One-five. I have decided that it is important to say that. I know I am not alone. I want to show some courage here and acknowledge it.(more…)

Enough with the wah-wah “I’m not in Kansas anymore” pity party about your Italian vacation and there being NOTHING TO EAT in America. C’mon!!!

This is how to do it: get off your vacation exhausted duff (okay, do some yoga first). Let the airplane headache pass and move on. Or, just plain move. I walked to my Weight Watchers meeting and saw that, yes, Virginia, there ARE consequences to your cornetto eating – but basta! Enough. Move on.

NYC Italian Coffee Bar

I walked to my favorite coffee bar in NYC — Tarallucci & Vino — a completely Italian place, I presume owned by Italians, but if not – certainly the people who work there are speaking the mother tongue. And, their customers are. So, too, the bambini. I ordered un espresso DOPPIO – figured that being in NYC – I couldn’t just order caffé like in Rome and expect to get espresso. Squisito!

Greenmarket Goodies

A short stroll away: our version of the Campo dei Fiori – without the statue of the executed guy. The Greenmarket at Union Square. I filled my market bag to overflowing: beets with succulent greens still attached. Radishes, broccoli, cauliflower. I love fall greenmarkets with its squashes, pumpkins and potatoes.

Hail, the mighty avocado. This one fruit singlehandedly saved me on my weight loss journey. Did you know that it is 7000 years old? Cultivated in Central America and brought to the New World in the 19th Century.

It’s true that avocados are high in fat — one reason they’ve earned the nickname “butter pear.” A medium-sized avocado contains 30 grams of fat, as much as a quarter-pound burger. That’s why diet experts have long urged Americans to go easy on avocados in favor of less fatty fruits and vegetables. But now nutritionists are taking another look. They’re finding that most of the fat in an avocado is monounsaturated — the “good” kind that actually lowers cholesterol levels. Thanks to this new understanding, the U.S. government recently revised its official nutrition guidelines to urge Americans to eat more avocados.

I almost started a riot at my Weight Watchers® meeting when I discussed my very own “avocado diet.”

On cold, frigid days like the one we’re experiencing right now in New York City, what a perfect day to stay inside, keep warm and cook up something in the trusty ol’ crock pot. They’ve modernized the name these days to slow cooker — maybe crock pot is just too Betty Crocker® for the manufacturers.

I have been using my slow cooker for quite awhile to prepare meals on a weekend. No effort, and they last me throughout the week. And, not necessarily just in these cold months. It works any time of the year.